This fact suggests the combination of low price elasticity of demand for gasoline and high elasticity of substitution between gasoline and the bundle of all other goods in household consumption. In non-econ-geek-speak, people are willing to give up other consumption to continue their gasoline consumption, even for holiday leisure travel.No kidding. If those pickup trucks as big as a small Kenworth (which are a real pain in urban areas where they really need a turning basin rather than a side street to make a left turn) aren't making full use of their hemi-V8-Saturn VB power at 10-15 mph above the speed limit, they're lugging inland waters cabin cruisers bigger than a Gloucester lobster boat. Those land-yachts as big as a Super Scenicruiser trailing a sport-ute-as-dinghy are also out in force.
In the world of entertainment, if 500 miles at Indianapolis with some constraints on fuel use affecting the outcome isn't enough play value, there's another 600 miles at Charlotte for fans of the guzzlers.
Obligatory econ-geekery: Perhaps the current price of gasoline, adjusted for inflation, is as high as it was in the spring of 1981 (before the crude oil price decontrol kicked in) but that number only illustrates flaws with the reckoning of price indices. On a purchasing power basis, do people have to work as long to purchase a gallon of gas today as they did in 1981?
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